Awaken My Soul
by JustForkIt
Summary: Jasper Whitlock has spent his entire life trying to be what everyone else expected. When he is left at the altar on the day of his wedding, and runs away from everyone he knows, will he find something that truly awakens his soul? A/J, Angst, Humor, Drama
1. On the Run

**I don't own Twilight.**

_I can't do this. We both know that we've been pretending… for a while. I wish that I could have been courageous enough to tell you in person, instead of having your sister give you this letter, but I knew if I saw you… I just can't do this anymore, Jasper. I will always love you but I can't be your wife. Please don't hate me._

I stared at the letter in my hand, reading and rereading what Maria had written. This couldn't be real, right? People didn't get Dear John letters on the day of their wedding; that only happened in movies. It certainly didn't happen to people who had dated for three years and been engaged for another two. We had a plan and that plan did _not_ include Maria leaving me.

"Jasper?" The sound of Rosalie's voice made me look up from the letter I was holding. My sister took a small step towards me. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head. "Where is she?"

Instead of her answering my question, Edward, my best friend, cleared his throat and shuffled towards us. "She's gone, Jasper. When Rosalie called me I went by the house to try and talk her into staying. All her stuff is gone."

With careful precision I folded Maria's letter into fourths and tucked it into my pocket, all the while ignoring the stares from my best friend and sister. I know they both wanted to ask how they could help, ask if there was anything they could do. The answer was no. There wasn't anything either one of them could do.

I took a deep breath before looking back up at them. "I guess I should tell everyone."

"Jasper, why don't you let me or Edward-"

I held up my hand to stop her from continuing. "It's my responsibility, Rosalie."

Before opening the door that lead to the sanctuary, where hundreds of our friends and family sat, I buttoned the jacket of my tuxedo. As the wooden door creaked behind me, all of their eyes turned in my direction. The pianist started playing, my mother wiped a tear away from her cheek, and Maria's grandmother gave me a small wave. I took a deep breath before asking the musician to stop.

With eyes staring at me, I tried to compose myself enough to tell them that there wouldn't be a wedding today. I couldn't make my mouth work properly; instead all I could do was ask myself if this was really happening. I'd spent the better part of my life working towards the future. I'd mapped out a plan for my life when I was thirteen and, up until today, hadn't ever deviated from it. Take care of Mom and Rosalie, check. Finish school and get accepted to Southern Methodist University, check. Fall in love and marry a woman who would be a wonderful wife and mother, partial check.

For the first time in a long time, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't plan for this; I couldn't work out a solution in my head. So I did the only thing that felt right in my heart but wrong in my mind. I ignored my father's voice in my head, telling me that running away from responsibilities wasn't an option, and ran as fast as my legs could carry me out of the church and into the hot parking lot.

xXxXxXx

"Just like the old days, huh?" Edward reclined his seat back and propped his bare feet up on the dashboard. "Where are we going anyway?"

My hands tightened around the steering wheel and I ignored my idiot best friend. Edward seemed completely oblivious to the fact that this wasn't some sort of summer road trip. I was running away, hiding from everyone and everything that I'd known. But when he basically threw himself in front of my car and refused to move until I agreed to let him come with me, I didn't have a choice. He probably would have just stolen someone's car and followed me if I wouldn't have let him in.

Edward Cullen and I had known each other since we were toddlers but even if we had known each other our whole lives, we were nothing alike. There was one word to describe my best friend and it was irresponsible. He lived life one day to the next, never thinking about what might happen tomorrow. Fortunately for him, Edward's father had also experienced a wayward period in his life and seemed content to let his son "figure it out on his own." That meant that every month a certain amount of money was deposited into Edward's bank account and even though he was twenty-eight years old, and still had an undecided major, Carlisle still wrote out tuition checks to The University of Texas.

I, on the other hand, had been forced to become an adult at thirteen due to circumstances that were beyond everyone's control. I'd worked my ass off in high school to qualify for an academic scholarship and had worked equally hard to maintain my grades during college. I spent four years working towards my degree and then another two to get my masters. As planned, I'd been working as a history text book author for over a year. The timing was exactly what I had planned when I'd asked Maria to marry me. Now… well who the hell knew what would happen now.

"I'll be hungry in about thirty minutes so… you know… plan accordingly."

Edward's voice broke me out of the daze I'd been in. I shifted in my seat before giving him a quick look and then rolled my eyes as he licked the paper of the joint he was rolling.

I shook my head before looking back at the road. "Are you seriously lighting that thing in my car?"

"Well yeah." Edward laughed before giving me a questioning glance. "Unless you wanted to light it and get the first hit."

"I don't smoke."

My best friend shrugged his shoulders and flicked the lighter to life. The smoke from his joint curled around him, making the interior of my car reek, as he inhaled and exhaled. I coughed once before rolling down the windows.

Edward's arm rested on the window. "So really, what's the plan? Mexico? California?"

"I don't know."

"Jasper Whitlock, not knowing something?" He laughed before taking another drag. "Well, there is a first time for everything."

Punching him would require too much effort, not to mention the fact that it could result in me having an accident. I'd already been left at the altar today; totaling my car didn't seem like such a good idea.

"Look." Edward flicked the joint out of the car and sat up in his seat. "You and Maria were going to take a honeymoon, right? So the way I see it is since she skipped out with the plane tickets to the Caribbean, then you should at least use the time off that you've-"

It felt like all of the blood in my veins had turned to ice. With slow movements, I pulled over to the shoulder of the road and turned to look at my best friend. He looked around, obviously confused as to why I had stopped in the middle of now where.

"Why did-"

"You told me that you didn't know where she was."

Edward's eyebrows pulled together. "Huh?"

"At the church, when I asked Rosalie where she was, you said she'd left but you didn't know where she was." I watched as realization set in on his face. "So if you really did go by the house and she wasn't there, then how do you know she used the tickets?"

For the first time, I saw my best friend speechless. He turned in his seat until he was facing the correct way and then spoke in a careful voice. "Rosalie asked me not to tell you."

I allowed myself a humorless laugh. "Well you've fucked that up, Edward. So just tell me how you know that she is on her way to our honeymoon suite?"

He still wouldn't look at me. "I went by the house, thinking that it was just cold feet or something. But she was… with someone else, Jasper. She took the tickets and left with someone else."

I swallowed, hard. "Someone else?"

Edward nodded. "We… I was going to tell you when we-"

There wasn't really a point in letting him finish the sentence. I threw my seatbelt off before shoving the car door open and stepping out into the dry West Texas heat. I started walking, watching as the dirt beneath me covered my shiny dress shoes.

I stopped when I heard Edward's voice yelling behind me. "We didn't want to make today any harder than it already was."

His feet crunched against the gravel, telling me he was coming closer. When he was standing behind me, I looked up at the deserted highway in front of us. "Who was it?"

"Jasp-"

I turned around to scream at him. "Who!"

He sighed before shoving his hands in his pockets. "Nettie."

Without a reason, other than blinding rage, my arm cocked back and my first slammed into Edward's face. He stumbled backwards for a second before touching his fingers to his bleeding nose. A part of me felt guilty, he was my best friend after all, but another part felt oddly justified. He had just told me that my fiancée, the woman I had asked to spend her life with me, was on her way to enjoy our two week honeymoon with another woman. He had to be lying, there just wasn't another explanation. Maria wasn't a lesbian or bi.

"You fucking punched me!" Edward yelled at me.

I raised my hand to point at him. "You're a damn liar, Cullen."

"Do you not see the blood coming out of my nose, asshole?"

God he was dense sometimes. I shook my head before clarifying my statement. "You're lying about Maria. She isn't into that, Edward. If she was I would… I would know. We were together for-"

"Dude, I saw it." He pushed on my chest. "I get that you don't want to believe this, I don't want to either, but I saw it. She told me she loved her and-"

Edward was quick enough to block my fist this time. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around before knocking my feet out from under me. I landed on my knees, hard, and struggled against his grip as his knee pushed against my back until I was lying on my stomach. "Stop trying to fucking punch me!"

"Stop telling me that my wife left me for another fucking woman!"

"Do you think I like this, Jasper? Do you think Rosalie and I wanted to be the ones to tell you she left? I loved Maria like she was a sister or something!" Edward shoved at my back before stepping away from me. "She made you happy Jasper, but we all knew that you hadn't been really happy together in a long time. Maria can't replace your-"

I sat up on my knees and interrupted him. "Stop."

"Living the life that you think your father would have wanted you to have won't bring him back, Jasper."

My dirt covered hands pulled at the hair on the back of my head while I tried to block out what Edward was saying. He thought he understood, and maybe he did on some small level, but he wouldn't ever really know. No one would.

"When you promised your dad that you wouldn't waste your life, he didn't mean to just go through it like some fucking zombie, Jasper. He asked you to take care of your mom and Rosalie, not put all of their needs above your own. You didn't have to go to SMU. You didn't have to ask Maria to marry you just because you'd been dating for a few years. You don't have to be perfect!"

I leaned back on my heels and wondered if he was right. Had I taken my father's dying words and morphed them into something that wasn't anywhere near what he really wanted or expected from me? Did I really love Maria as my soul mate? Or was it just because we got comfortable being with each other and I never thought there would be more than just her? I really had no idea who or what I was because I had based every part of my life off of my father's wishes.

"I don't know what to do."

There was a loud sigh before Edward sat down next to me. "You don't always have to know, Jasper. Sometimes you just have to… run. Pick a place that you've always wanted to go to and never thought you would get to. Or get a map and throw a fucking dart at it."

I smiled before shaking my head. "I can't do that."

"Okay." Edward stood up and went back to my car. Leaving the door open, he yelled from the front seat. "First letter of the first artist we hear and we pick a state based on that letter! Got it?"

We were in the middle of no where, and the chance of getting anything other than talk radio was slim, but I nodded my head anyway. I listened while Edward scanned through the stations and finally got to my feet when a song started playing.

"It sucks that it had to be Avril Lavigne, but at least we know a letter. How many states begin with an A?"

"Four." I answered him.

"Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and-"

"Alaska." I finished.

Edward smiled up at me from the driver's seat. "So where are we going?"

I sighed before looking up at the sky. I'd been to Alabama and Arkansas. Arizona was only a few hours away and technically if we went then I could still be back in time to… What the fuck was I doing? Taking a chance didn't mean planning something out.

Edward hit my arm. "Well?"

I looked down at my best friend and nodded my head. "Alaska. We're going to Alaska."

**AN: I've never written an A/J story but I wanted to give it a try! Thanks for giving this story a chance, guys! Maggie, as always, you are awesome.**


	2. Detour

**Still don't own Twilight.**

"We should totally stop at all of the roadside attractions."

I threw an arm over my eyes and prayed that Edward would eventually shut the hell up and go to sleep. We'd been driving for over eight hours and I just needed to… not think. Which was stupid really because what else could I do? No matter how I tried not to, Maria was all I could think about.

"And IHOP is happening in the AM, Jasper. I wanna Rooty-Tooty the fuck out of Albuquerque."

I shook my head. "That sounds like a bad name for a porn involving anal, Edward."

"Don't knock it till you've tried it." He threw his duffle bag on the bed and started digging through it. "By the way, I'll need to borrow some toothpaste. And do you have an extra t-shirt or something? Not that I don't look debonair in a tuxedo, but I think I've taken that look as far as I can."

Edward then picked my suitcase up and started unzipping it. I sat up on my elbows and watched him. "What exactly did you pack when we went by your house?"

"The essentials." He held up a pile of my clothes and shook his head. "What the fuck, Jasper? Were you planning on going on your honeymoon or a fucking business trip? Khaki pants and loafers? Really? Are you fifty?" He threw the clothes back in my bag and sighed. "I can't wear any of this."

"Then don't, asshole." I got off of the bed I was laying on and took the mess of clothes from Edward. He watched in amusement as I started refolding all of them. "I don't want my clothes wrinkled to shit."

He gave me a sarcastic thumbs-up before smelling the white undershirt he'd been wearing all day. "Well, this is pretty ripe so I don't have a choice. Maybe they have souvenir t-shirts in the lobby. I'll look in the- Hey!"

I grabbed his ratty duffle bag off of his bed and started looking through what all he considered to be essentials for this trip. It shouldn't have surprised me that there was nothing "essential" but his damn passport. "Fruit Rollups and a bong, Edward? Are you seventeen?"

He shrugged and pulled the box of fruit snacks out of my hand. "I'll just buy shit as we go. Can I use your toothbrush?"

xXxXxXx

"Mom is freaking out, Jasper! You just left and… what am I supposed to tell her? You've been gone for three days!"

I rubbed my forehead before moving the phone to my other ear. "Tell her I'm with Edward."

"Where are you going? What about the house? Have you-"

I knew my sister was just concerned but playing the million questions game was annoying the shit out of me. "Rosalie, I am a grown man. I don't know where we are going. I… I can't be there right now."

The sound of my sister sniffling made me want to turn around and drive back to Texas. "Just… don't disappear okay? Maria hurt you Jasper, I know that, but you're my only brother and I can't…"

I leaned against the car and closed my eyes. "I'll come back, Rosalie. You know that."

After a few more minutes of reassuring my sister that I wasn't going to just vanish off the face of the earth, we hung up. While I waited for Edward to finish paying for the gas, I turned my phone over in my hands and debated if calling Maria was a good idea or not. Eventually we would have to talk to each other and decide what to do with the house and all of the things we had accumulated together over the years.

I stared down at the familiar phone number on the screen of my phone and then canceled the call. We would have to talk to each other soon, but that didn't mean it had to be today. I slipped my sunglasses back on before getting back in the car.

"Well, Seattle was fun." Edward tossed me a bottle of water before tearing into a bag of beef jerky. "You sure you don't want me to drive?"

I shook my head before thanking him for the drink. "I'm okay."

We drove in silence for a while, Edward gnawing on dehydrated beef and me trying not to think about Maria. I wondered what she was doing, but then the mental images started coming into focus and I had to stop myself. For some reason, the fact that she'd left with Nettie made the entire thing more difficult.

After an hour of driving in silence, I briefly looked at Edward before telling him what I was thinking about. He listened while I explained everything. "I was going to call Maria but I can't talk to her. Not yet, anyway."

Edward might have been an irresponsible asshole ninety percent of the time, but he was my best friend, and he normally knew exactly what to say to make shit better. He tossed his bag of jerky onto the dash and turned in his seat to look at me.

"Remember when we were like seven or something and I was scared to jump off of the roof and onto the trampoline?" I smiled before nodding my head. Edward continued. "And you told me that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to. But once I did, then I would realize I was making it out to be higher than it really was. Same rules apply with this."

I couldn't help but laugh. "When you did finally jump, you missed the trampoline and ended up breaking your leg."

"Exactly." Edward nodded.

"I'm not seeing how this applies to the fact that the woman I was supposed to marry, left me at the altar and took another female on our honeymo-"

"Should I have been on that roof to begin with?" He interrupted me. "No. I shouldn't have. But you know what? It took me three weeks to build up the courage to jump, and even if I did break my leg and end up looking like a complete pussy in front of all the kids in our neighborhood, it was still worth the fall."

I nodded my head and we went back to the silence that had filled the car moments earlier. As I drove, I wondered if Edward was right. Would I ever be able to look back on what had happened with Maria and say that it had been worth the fall? Right now, it didn't seem like anything in my life made sense, but I had to at least try to believe that eventually all of this would.

"Hey, Edward?"

My best friend stopped drawing on the leg of his jeans and looked up at me. "Yeah?"

"How long did it take for you to realize that falling was worth it?"

He smiled and tossed the pen into the back seat. "About a month ago when I was at a party in Austin. These dumbass kids were trying to jump off a roof, onto a trampoline and into a pool. I remembered how fucking shitty it was to be in a full leg cast and didn't participate." He slapped my shoulder and smiled. "But you're way more mature than I am so I would say you'll be all healed up in no time."

xXxXxXx

I was in the middle of focusing on the map in my hands when Edward interrupted my train of thought. He'd taken over the driving a few miles back and had been uncharacteristically quiet.

"We aren't going to go live in a bus or anything are we?"

I frowned before looking up at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

He kept his eyes on the road but answered me in a quiet voice. "You know that book you were obsessed with in high school, where the kid took off for Alaska and ended up living in a bus and dying. We aren't doing that, right? Because I'll be honest, I'm down for just about anything but I am not hiking my ass through the Alaskan wilderness and -"

"You read _Into the Wild_?"

Edward shook his head and looked at me. "I saw the movie. And I love you and all Jasper but I'm not going to live off of berries and twigs until you're ready to rejoin society."

I laughed while folding the map up. "Edward."

He slapped the map out of my hands. "Dude, I'm serious! I am not into nature and shit. If we-"

"Watch out!" I yelled, bracing my arms against the dash.

Edward slammed his foot onto the break to miss the fucking moose that was standing in the middle of the highway and my car fishtailed on the wet pavement. We both screamed and braced ourselves for whatever my car decided to collide with. When the front passenger side rammed into a tree, the windshield splintered and a sickening metal grinding noise drowned out our voices. Then, just as quick as it had happened, everything stopped.

"What the… Are you okay?" I asked Edward. He nodded his head but kept his hands glued on the steering wheel. I slowly took off my seatbelt and looked around at the damage I could see from my seat. We definitely wouldn't be driving away from this. "Do you even know where we are?"

Edward shook his head. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." I felt around in the floorboard for my phone. "Can you open your door?"

Luckily, the driver's side was completely fine. After Edward got out, I crawled over the middle console and got out of the car. Seeing the full extent of the damage was sickening.

"I'm sorry, Jasper, I didn't… I wasn't paying attention."

I shook my head at his apology. "I'm just glad we're both okay."

While I called to give our mile marker to the closest emergency services, Edward was able to get our bags out of the back of the car. Forty-five minutes later, we were both sitting on the side of the road, soaking wet and watched as a tow truck pulled up next to us.

My best friend elbowed my arm and nodded towards the door of the truck where "BJ Service and Automotive" was written across the door. I rolled my eyes at his juvenile humor and stood up to greet the mechanic.

"Looks like you guys had a little accident." The voice coming from the tow truck took both of us by surprise. A girl, who had to be our age our a little younger, with long brown hair jumped out of the cab and smiled. She nodded towards my car while pulling her hair into a ponytail. "Need some help?"

"_You're_ the mechanic?" Edward practically yelled.

I shook my head at his nonexistent manners and held my hand out. "Hi, I'm Jasper and yes, we need some help towing the car into town."

The girl shook my hand and smiled. "I'm Bella. Welcome to Forks, Jasper."

xXxXxXx

Sitting in the office of BJ Service and Automotive was beyond boring. We'd been stuck there for over an hour and I'd been forced to endure Edward's constant commentary about Bella the entire time.

"Did you see how perfect her lips are?" He whispered. "And she knows how to fix cars, Jasper! That's so fucking hot!"

I flipped to the next page of my magazine. "And you don't suppose that that large Native American guy out in the garage with her could be her _boyfriend_?"

Before he had a chance to answer the door from the garage opened and Bella walked into the office. "Well, Jake took a look at your car and I have some good news and some bad news."

Edward practically jumped out of his chair and leaned against her desk once she sat down. I had to move him over so that I could see what Bella was pulling up on their computer.

She gave him a quick smile before looking back at me. "So which do you want first? The good or the bad?"

I rubbed the back of my neck and shrugged my shoulders. "Good, I guess."

"The good news is that we can fix it and your insurance will cover the majority of it. We have a friend down on the reservation that does body work, so we can get you taken care of."

"And the bad?" I asked hesitantly.

"The bad news is that unless you want us to tow your car to Olympia or Port Angeles then it will be about a week before we can get you up and running again. We're a pretty small town and we don't keep a lot of parts in stock."

I groaned before leaning back in the chair. "A week?"

Bella shrugged her shoulders. "Sorry. We can tow it for you and your insurance will pay for it."

My mouth opened to tell her to make the arrangements to tow it, but Edward kicked the leg of my chair before smiling back at Bella.

"Can you give us just a second?" She nodded before pushing away from her desk and walking back into the garage. As soon as the door shut, Edward got two inches away from my face. "We are not towing your car! Are you crazy?"

I pushed him away from me and stood up. "What? I'm not waiting here for a week, Edward."

"Dude! She's… I mean… you'd be helping the local economy! A small town like this? They could probably use all the help they can get!" Edward grabbed the sleeve of my shirt. "I am literally begging, Jasper."

I wasn't buying this "helping the economy" bullshit. I knew damn well why he wanted to stay here and it was because of a five foot four brunette that had her head under the hood of my car. I shook my head. "Edward, this isn't-"

The door opened again and I rolled my eyes at Edward's silent begging.

"Texas plates? That's a long way from home." I turned around at the sound of another feminine voice. A tiny little thing of a girl smiled up at me. "Welcome to Forks. Are you guys staying in town? Jake and Bella really do excellent work." She spoke quickly while her eyes flew between mine and Edward's.

Bella closed the door to the garage and smiled behind her friend. "Do I need to arrange a tow?"

My best friend cleared his throat before hitting my shoe with his. "Jasper."

With three sets of eyes staring at me, I caved. "Is there a hotel in Forks?"

While Edward basically swarmed Bella, getting lodging information, I fell back into my chair and watched as the other girl dropped an armful of baskets onto the desk. I could feel her watching me out of the corner of my eye but kept my attention focused on the magazine I'd been reading.

"I'm Alice." I looked up to see her sitting in the chair next to mine, her small hand held out for mine. "You're Jasper?"

I nodded and shook her hand. "Nice to meet yo-"

"Your soul is sad, Jasper." She whispered. Her hand squeezed mine before she continued. "But just remember that your heart will heal."

Without another word she stood up and left me sitting by myself. I watched as the door shut behind her and tried to ignore the tingling in my hand that she'd been holding.

"How did she know?" I asked the empty room.

**AN: So glad that some of you who have never read A/J stories are giving this a try. There is just something about their back story in Twilight that just makes my heart melt. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed this!**


End file.
